Letters: Drones, NRA

Water problems need modern solutions

“The great water debate,” presented in the U-T (San Diego In Depth, March 31) exemplifies government solving modern water delivery problems using horse and buggy rather than super highway technology. Presenting Southern California water delivery solutions by advocates who have done little since the peripheral canal was built allows for more future water crisis than solutions for Californians. The billions proposed to add 35 miles of twin 40-foot aqueduct tunnels from the Sacramento Delta area could be applied to a bigger undersea coastal aqueduct. One with many times more capacity and reliability than anything we have today. One that could deliver excess runoff fresh water normally emptying into the ocean from the delta but also, at some future time, from other west coast areas. Building a flexible seabed fresh water tube tunnel has many other benefits. It would tremendously reduce present peripheral canal’s evaporation/seepage losses, damage vulnerability, and the huge electrical energy requirements to pump aqueduct water over mountain ranges between Northern and Southern California. - Ernest Bellantoni, San Diego

Drone use disturbing

The U-T’s “Bring on the Drones” editorial (April 2) was very disturbing. It showed a lack of knowledge about drones as explained by weapons instructor Craig B. Hulet, an author and guest on international and nationwide radio programs. He has stated that drones are absolutely terrible at marksmanship and they have killed 47,000 civilians to date. The same technology that we want to use one way, another country like China will use in a different way in swarming masses. The technology to make drones is very cheap and easy, which is why every contractor on earth is trying to make them, however they are being made in all sizes from tiny to enormous and they have no laser-guided precision capabilities. The reason our government is switching to drones is because it cannot keep up with the level of American casualties or the expense of the wars we have started. A drone pilot can push the button to fire a drone from 3,000 miles away. What is more cowardly than that? And the president wants to give these “pilots” awards? President Obama intends to have 3,000 drone bases around the world including in the United States domestically operating all at the same time, for complete surveillance. The abuse of power is not something that is potentially on its way it is already here and being licensed by the FAA. These drones will interfere with normal flight space as well and cause plane crashes. - Andi Boggs, Chula Vista

Thwarting the trash thieves

Mr. Farrell (“Why do we pay taxes” Letters, April 4) should do what most people on my street do with their recycle barrels and place them out on the curb at daybreak rather than the evening before trash day.

After I caught a “trash picker” going through my blue barrel using a flashlight during the dark hours, he ran away with his cart. Stealing from the city is a crime. - Bill Bartkus, San Diego